The 50th anniversary of the Canada Summer Games will wrap up this Sunday in Winnipeg, after 17 wonderful days of excellent hospitality, true sportsmanship, and plenty of healthy athletic competition that drew tremendous crowds at all 16 venues.
What a wonderful opportunity this type of sporting get-together gives Canada's young athletes to further develop and show off their skills at a national event, that might one day culminate with some of them representing this great country of ours at an international event. In the past this has proven to be a solid stepping stone for many of our top notch athletes as they strive to reach the pinnacle of their chosen sport.
Every day the 4,000 plus athletes, from the 13 provinces and territories poured their heart and soul into each of their particular sports, and that speaks volumes for the character, gutty efforts, dedication and perseverance that each one displayed.
Manitoba is currently in seventh place with 20 medals and would love nothing more than to overtake SK and NS for fifth spot. As usual, and for obvious reasons, Team Ontario (102 medals and counting) will easily walk away with the highest total medal count, but something much more important than winning is the fact that all the athletes competed to the best of their ability and represented their part of Canada with honour and distinction.
Manitoba's baseball team, featuring four players from Westman (John Patmore-Reston, Noah Geekie-Srathclair, Lyndon Zimmer-Russell, and Jared McCorrister-Boissevain) captured silver for only the third time in Games history, matching the accomplishments of the '73 and '85 teams. Unfortunately, Team ‘Toba has never won the top prize but it was good to see two prairie-provinces fighting it out in the final. Team Saskatchewan took home gold with a 3-1 victory over Team ‘Toba, winning their first ever gold medal.
You know, sometimes in sports a story comes across that makes you wonder, “What the hell is our society coming to?” Take for instance the latest ridiculous, so called business transaction involving star football (soccer) player Neymar Jr. who suits up for, some say, the best team in Europe, FC Barcelona? FC PSG (Paris Saint Germain) just paid 220 million Euros ($330 million) and that's just the transfer fee, to bring him over to France. Then they sign him to a five year, $350 million (including bonuses) contract on top of that; the second biggest individual contract in sports.
Hell, for that kind of money, you can buy a whole EUFA team, let alone one player. In case you're interested, and to put that into a more personal, “one can understand” perspective, that works out to be roughly $5,000..... an hour, for the life of the contract. Totally, absolutely, without a doubt,...freakin’ insane!
If you're a die-hard baseball fan, your last chance to watch good senior ball this summer is this weekend in Neepawa, when the Senior AA Club Provincials takes place, featuring eight of the top teams in Maniotba. Both the SWBL champions Oak River Dodgers and the Boissevain Centenniels, who they defeated in three straight games, will be there. Manager Derek Shamray and his young Dodgers will be hoping they can cap off a tremendous season by adding a AA title to the AAA championship they won last month.
Retirement didn't' last too long for ex-Bears' QB Jay Cutler, who was supposed to be a colour analyst in the broadcast booth this upcoming season, as he has signed a one year $10 million deal to play for the Miami Dolphins. This crazy scenario only occurred because their starting QB, Ryan Tannehill, tore his ACL in training camp and nobody in Florida wanted to take a chance on free agent QB, turned political activist, ex-49er, Colin Kaepernick. He is still on the outside looking in, with no team taking a chance due to his "radioactive persona".
It's hard to believe three time Stanley Cup winner Sid the Kid turned 30 last week and contrary to what some people are saying, he is still on top of his game. Until next time....
